Linux Proves – The Best Things In Life Are Free

They say – there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But, Linux and FOSS software can be used to start, run and grow your business for, you guessed it, free. February survey of IT managers by IDC indicated that hard times are accelerating the adoption of Linux. The open source operating system will emerge from the recession in a stronger data center position than before, concluded an IDC white paper. Reducing costs and stronger interoperability with Windows were listed as the two top issues in a new survey of IT managers. Sun Microsystems, Novell, Microsoft and many more have been down because of bad economy. But, Free software vendor such as Red Hat, IBM and others are doing fine. Here in India, many Government projects and schools found success with Linux. Also, Linux found good successes in emerging economies where Microsoft Windows doesn’t already dominate end user computing. The increasing use of Linux as a pre-loaded system on mobile devices is another area where Linux use is likely to grow on.

However, Linux may be free, but you still need to invest in the training and getting involved in the community to get support. What do you think? Have you found success with Linux in your data center? Please add your thoughts in the comments below.

Ya…its absolutely true…also it is true that people need some training….support is also an issu,but many thanks to the linux community.People are not used to it.Other OS people dont know what a package manager is or what repository exactly does.I think one thing Linux shud implement is that they shud be less dependent on net..

ya, it is undoubtedly true… I am working with Linux since 2001 (when I was student of CSE) and now I work in an ISP holding a top technical position. I am using Linux (Ubuntu Server Edition/CentOS) each of my production server. Where ever I got chance I introduce Linux there either server (most of them) or Desktop. This Linux learning/experience is flourishing my career. Thanks to linux and FOSS.

True, it takes some training and ‘work’ to get used to linux. The key advantage of linux, however, is the fact that this training is well spent. Unlike the customs of the proprietary world, a new version of GNU/Linux software usually won’t reinvent the wheel and you won’t have to re-learn your applications and/or administrations when a new version of you OS arrives. New versions of free software don’t just at will redefine the user interface or the options. That’s called the evolution model of FOSS. While proprietary software will benefit, if backwards or forewards compatibility is lost (people will have to buy an upgrade), FOSS will try to stay compatible with older and newer versions. GNU/Linux rocks!

Linux may be free but its also true that Linux requires a lot of expertise to use it. Part of the free source problems is that there are too many amateurs pretending to be experts and creating havoc by not knowing how to write simple directions. The main problems with Linux are that there are too many different versions requiring too many training sessions to get anything done. Hacked to death versions like Linpus Lite only frustrate users because they can’t do basic stuff on their own local intranets to access shared files/printers etc. Acer does not provide the required support and expertise of addressing issues with their hacked to death version of linux because… ITS FREE AND THEY DON’T GET PAID TO DO THAT! OK, its great that its free but so are wrecked cars and broken computers. You get what you pay for… Headaches!

When reading the title, I instantly thought about the very same ideas that you expressed in your last paragraph.

I have several computers (some dual-boot with Windows, other only run Linux) running Linux. The amount of research, trying different live CD’s, deciding between GNOME & KDE, Debian-based, RPM-based, or something else, and ultimately, how much of my time, energy, and resources I wanted to commit to learning Linux was a lengthy and costly process. The amount of CD’s that I burned, the amount of time spent installing (or trying to install) different distros, and the money I spent on books can be quite daunting, but what ultimately pushed me to take the leap of faith was Windows Vista. When I had to by a replacement for my laptop, I could only get one with Vista. On that day, I decided that if I had to learn a new OS, I was going to learn a good one, and I installed Ubuntu.

My road to Ubuntu, and ultimately sidux and Debian, was costly but well worth it.

i work on Linux since 2002 , now i have many production servers working on Linux (CentOs/RHEL) Squid , Mail,Apache,Oracle this Nice thing in Linux that you working on files you can see/control every thing I feel stable to work on Linux .

“On that day, I decided that if I had to learn a new OS, I was going to learn a good one, and I installed Ubuntu.” : I hope you’re kidding there, Ubuntu isn’t a good OS. If you want a stable OS, don’t wait and go for Debian now. As Ubuntu is based on Debian, you’ll already know what to do.